March Edit: Falling in Love With a Pesto and Reading 11 Books
Articles that made me think, the best of the books, and things eaten, loved, and listened to
Spring's entry and its pollen fest caught me off guard, but March was full of mostly good things, a lightening and smoothing of everything. It was a month of juxtapositions, with moments of joy and renewal alongside some rejection and redirection.
April is shaping up to be much of the same contrast. I've already experienced a pretty balanced heap of disappointment and delight, and we're only four days in. Here's what delighted me the most in March!
I randomly bought a whipped body butter at a book event a few months back and finally cracked it open in March. It's from a Black woman-owned body care shop and is nice and moisturizing. Plus, my husband, who has a notoriously useless nose, can always smell it.
I recently started receiving The 19th News Network's daily newsletter (there's also a weekly version). I like their reporting style, and their newsletter has been great for helping me keep up with the latest politics, gender, and policy-related news.
I got new glasses! I used my insurance benefits for a "sensible" black and subtle blue tortoise pair with a cat-eye frame and a slightly stronger prescription. I'm hoping to find a dupe of a bright blue pair I loved but didn't want to pay extra for. I don't have any good pictures of me in my new specs, but I'm wearing them in this video.
On a recent trip to see my North Carolina family, I visited three bookstores. I hit two favorites and a new-to-me one, Quail Ridge Books, which I'm obsessed with now.
I only have like three friends on Letterboxd, but seeing quipy movie reviews from them and others sparked some joy last month. One of my 2025 goals is to enjoy more media outside of books, so hopefully, April is the month I get hip and start watching more movies.
I fell in love with an olive basil pesto. Unfortunately for me and all its other lovers, it's from Trader Joe's, and I probably won't be able to find it next time.
I'm bad at getting a lot of things (enough sleep, carbs, gas, etc.), including protein. I already loved Oikos yogurt cups with 15g of protein, but I recently discovered their new drink with 23g of protein.
My favorite Atlanta restaurant of the month was Gaja Korean Bar in East Atlanta Village!
I can't have a ton of sugar, but I've been able to enjoy a few of the purple sweet potato KitKats we got in Japan because, apparently, they don't have as much sugar as the American varieties.
Speaking of Japan, you can take us out of the country, but we'll still be eating ramen (and sushi) all the time. We skipped our usual food spots in the Raleigh area and tried Miso Ramen Bar. Delicious.
I made this butterfly pea tea lemonade for a blue-themed book club (forgetting that this tea turns purple when you add lemon...), and it was a hit.
First of all, I finished 11 books in March. We are so back. I read 55% print format books (which I know because of The StoryGraph's stats), so I'm doing a decent job knocking out more of my physical TBR pile.
March wasn't the best reading month. I read some good books, but quite a few that were "mid" to me. There were some standouts, however, and my favorite fiction book of the month was Green Dot, a book in the "sad girl literary fiction" genre in which the main character is bored with life and work and falls into a very messy situationship.
On the nonfiction front, I really enjoyed A Bit Much: Poems, Do You Still Talk to Grandma?, and The Good Enough Job.
I'll eventually write reviews for all of these books once I've gotten my life and thoughts together. Watch the 'gram!
I've been trying to listen to more music by artists who have a song or two I've liked. That's how I ended up loving Vagabon, a Cameroonian-American indie/electro-pop artist, and her "Sorry I Haven't Called" album.
Japanese Breakfast's new album, "For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)," came out in March, so I listened to that a few times in preparation for her concert in Atlanta in April (!!!).
My "emo 4ever" playlist also got a lot of play, especially on the long trip back from North Carolina.
As a church history nerd and Beth Allison Barr devotee, the All the Buried Women podcast was one of my favorite listens. There are more episodes to come. It digs into the Southern Baptist Convention's archives to tell the stories of women who preached, taught, and pastored and the denomination's shift toward being restrictive toward women. The hosts connect this history and the SBC's continuing trend toward fundamentalism to the abuse victims who came forward in recent years and the trend of young women leaving the church at high rates.
I enjoyed this episode of Saved by the City with Erin Hicks Moon about the "big, thorny questions about modern faith" she isn't afraid to ask, and her new book, which I preordered and need to read soon.
The Ambling Mind: An ode to the act of getting out and walking that underscores what it does for the creative mind, how it can help shape our perception of the world, and how it ties into the practices of thinking and writing.
How your brain changes when you outsource it to AI: A fascinating, thorough article about humanity's long history of using tools to offload mental labor and the impact AI, smartphones, and short-form video has on our brains. It brings up good questions about what type of thinking might be OK to outsource to AI and other digital tools and under which circumstances we should try to preserve our cognitive integrity.
Decluttering Friendships: When Is It Time to Let Go?: This article asks, "When is the right time to say 'see you later' to a friend?"
Why I haven't left: Kristin Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne—a book I wish I could make everyone read, especially those who see the current entanglement of evangelicals and the government and ask, "How did we get here?"—wrote about how, after everything she's witnessed, researched, and been through with the Church, she hasn't lost her faith.
I'm a psychologist who studies couples—5 'hard truths' about marriage most people learn too late in life: Marriage lessons from a psychologist who studies and works with couples every day and believes accepting these truths makes us likelier to have a happy, successful relationship.
There Is No Point in My Being Other Than Honest with You: On Toni Morrison’s Rejection Letters: Wisdom gleaned from Toni Morrison's rejection letters to writers during her 16 years as an editor at Random House. (There's also a book about her legendary editorship coming out this June!)
The birth order theory, still / These Charlotte Stone shoes / The way Ruby Franke's husband keeps dodging his complicity / (For some reason) This chic refrigerator with gold handles / Suzanne Lambert's grandma's advice to people pleasers
Thanks for reading!
